The attack took place early in the morning with dawn only having broken. Lebus’ army targeted the unit protecting the mountain stream. Thanks to the freezing winds, the stream was frozen over its entire width of almost ten alsin. Polus’s army had prepared itself to defend from attacks by erecting several wooden fences in the vicinity of the river.
However, what attacked Polus’ camp first weren’t armed soldiers, but a sleigh. Loaded with many stones of various sizes which Lebus’ soldiers had picked up in the mountains, the sleigh slid down the frozen stream at a terrifying speed. The sleigh was smashed to pieces after it ran into a fence, but at the same time the fence also suffered heavy damage and heeled over. And using that opening, one sleigh after the other was sent towards the camp.
The soldiers of Polus, who were on watch duty close to the fences, stood stock still, completely dumbstruck, as they watched this happen. The sleighs were blown away as they successively crashed into the fences, causing such a thundering noise that one would fear going deaf while at the same time unloading their cargo on the soldiers in a shower of rocks.
The soldiers looked at each other while protecting their heads with their shields and arms, implicitly asking their comrades how they were supposed to make this stop. If a human tried to stop the sleighs, they’d be turned into a blood pulp in the best case, and sent flying after having all their bones broken in the worst case.
As they kept watching in confusion, not doing anything, one of the fences was completely destroyed at last. Hearing the tremendously loud whangs, the soldiers, who had been still asleep in their tents, rushed over, but they didn’t have an idea what to do about this situation either.
In the meantime another two fences were destroyed. The soldiers scattered to get away while screaming in fear.
At that moment, Lebus’ soldiers left their hiding places and ran down the mountain. The one leading the charge was a small girl who didn’t seem to belong on a battlefield. In her hand she was holding an ax.
The soldiers of Polus widened their eyes in the next moment as they witnessed how the ax grew to a size exceeding its holder no sooner than it was clad by a faint glow. The handle became twice as long, and the half-moon-like blades became more than twice as big.
The girl was Olga, and the ax was Mad RoarRago Muma.
Accompanied by the dull breaking and snapping of flesh and bones, sprays of blood whipped across the frozen ground. Olga casually brandished her huge ax, literally blowing away the head of a nearby enemy soldier. Half of what used to be a head was still stuffed in the squashed helmet as it tumbled on the ground.
It was a very one-sided battle. Each time Olga advanced, brandishing Mad Roar left and right, a soldier of Polus was turned into a lump of meat. A mountain of corpses piled up in no time, warm lifeblood thawing the frozen soil and forming pools of bloody mud.
Of course Lebus’ soldiers also swung their swords and spears as they followed her lead, but the Moon Princess of the Mad Roar exhibited such a flashy, gruesome fighting style to friend and foe that their hard struggling fell flat in comparison.
The soldiers of Polus, who hadn’t realized that they were facing a Vanadis, were assailed by fear pregnant with superstitious beliefs, and fell into a state of panic. Watching a girl, who should be far younger than themselves, eradicating their comrades each time she wielded an ax not fitting her delicate figure, didn’t allow them to regard this as anything but a nightmare.
Egol’s main force showed up around the time when the unit protecting the river had been annihilated and scattered. They became dumbfounded at first, followed by a feeling of dread. Not one of their comrades, who were supposed to protect this point, was left alive with the ground being covered by a carpet of blood and corpses.
While they were unable to catch up with the situation spreading out in front of them, the Vanadis with pink hair swooped down on them, brandishing her ax. Lebus’ soldiers expanded the path cut open by Olga, crushing Egol’s main force all too quickly.
Without even being granted the time allowing other allies to rush over when faced with Olga’s prowess, the girl very soon found herself standing in front of Egol with her ax leaning against her shoulder.
From Egol’s point of view as a tall, broad man, Olga could count as a dwarf. And yet, the young patriarch of the Kazakov family could only see this girl, a cluster of smeared blood and sweat, as some kind of mysterious monstrosity.
These days Polus was also overflowing with rumors of monsters and fairies prowling the lands. Egol couldn’t help but wonder whether she wasn’t one of those.
Yelling to encourage himself, Egol assaulted her with his sword. But, all Olga did was to carefreely raise Muma over her head. This alone was enough to break his sword’s blade as soon as a metallic clank reverberated. And as if that hadn’t been enough, his arm was broken as well.
Olga thrust her ax at Egol after he lost his balance and fell on his backside. An endless stream of sweat ran down Egol’s face.
The girl coldly asked him, “Surrender or death?”, under the sky that had already begun to grow light.
“Surrender! I’ll surrender!” Egol screamed pleadingly, thus spelling the all too sudden end of this battle.
◆◇◆
“──After this, I had them prepare a large number of horses and returned to Lebus by myself. I entrusted your soldiers to the commanding officer.” Olga finished her recount while getting another refill of apple cider.
As soon as she arrived in Lebus, Olga had the second half of the 2,000 soldiers, whom she had ordered to prepare dogs and sleighs, chase after the army led by Liza. After listening to their reports, she galloped all the way to Boroszló while switching horses on the way.
“Switching horses… You make it sound so easy.”
Olga flashed a proud smile, befitting a girl of her age, at Liza who had sighed with a dumbstruck expression.
“The equestrian tribes train this from an early age while leading a life in the prairie. Horses are our life after all.”
“By the way,” Olga prefaced her question while drinking her cider, “what about the battle with Legnica’s Vanadis?”
“It concluded yesterday. Elen defeated her.”
“I see,” Olga nodded, lowering her eyes onto the cup in her hand.
She drained down the rest in one breath, and then let her body flop sideways onto the carpet.
“I’ll sleep for a while.”
She closed her eyes, and started to peacefully snore after a period of less than two breaths.
Liza looked down on the young girl, flabbergasted by her extremely free and uncontrolled conduct, but after reconsidering, her lips revealed a gentle smile.
“She must have come here in a hurry.”
All in an attempt to help Elen and Liza. And now that she had arrived, she had been so sleepy after using up all her strength that she even forgot to take off her cap.
At that moment, Elen’s voice could be heard outside the tent. She had apparently just arrived in Lebus’ camp. Once she was told to enter by Liza, Elen turned over a part of the entrance flap, peeking into the tent. She looked at Liza, and then shifted her eyes towards Olga who was sleeping on the carpet.
“When did she get here?”
“Just a little while ago.”
Liza prepared a silver cup for Elen, and invited her to sit down on the carpet just like yesterday. Immediately following, she explained everything Olga had told her.
“Oh wow…!” Elen peered down at Olga, clearly uncertain whether to show astonishment or admiration on her face. “What an incredible girl. I don’t have the confidence that I could pull off the same.”
“Me neither. By the way──” Liza’s expression turned serious.
Egol having surrendered should have thwarted yet another of Valentina’s plots. Thus she wondered whether they should start to slowly head to the capital tomorrow. After all, they could write the letters to the noble lords while en march.
“You’re right. Twenty days have passed since we left the capital…I’m curious about the situation over there.” Elen nodded.
Valentina wasn’t the only problem either. She wondered what happened to Julian Kurtis after raising an army, and whether Sofy and Mila were able to repel the Muozinel.
“With us coming along, the march will proceed slowly, but is that alright with you?”
“We will match your pace. It’s still much better than moving in small groups, just to be crushed individually.”
“Gotcha. Let’s go together then.”
After they finished panning out the details afterwards, Elen bid farewell from Liza and left the tent. When she looked up, she found that the sun had passed the zenith a good while ago. She guessed that it should be around early afternoon right now.
Just when the wind let her silver hair fly, Silver Flash sent a warning to Elen by caressing her with a wind of its own. At once she extended a hand to her sword, feeling something akin to shivers. While entering combat mode, she turned her eyes to the sky after noticing how her surroundings had become dark all of a sudden, just to have her breath taken away.
The sky she was looking at was dyed in a sickening violet. Despite having been blue just moments ago.
──What is this? What’s going on?
Elen kept looking up while doing her best to suppress her shock, and then scanned her vicinity, suspecting that a demon might be approaching, granted this all was a deed by them.
A moment later Elen was assailed by yet another shock. The sky had returned to normal. Following that, Arifar also stopped warning her. Even the eerie feeling of tension that had crept across her whole body had vanished as if nothing had ever happened in the first place.
“What’s going on?”
She wondered whether she might have experienced some kind of hallucination by herself, but hearing the commotion among Lebus’ soldiers, she understood that they had also seen the violet sky.
When she placed a hand on her forehead, it was drenched in sweat. At that moment, Liza came out of her tent. As soon as she spotted Elen, she quickly walked over.
“Did something happen just now?” Her hand was resting on the grip of Valitsaif.
Guessing that Liza and her draconic tool must have felt some kind of presence just now, Elen briefly explained what she had seen moments ago.
“A violet sky…”
“Very likely it’s an abnormal event related to Tir Na Fal. Though it happened on a fairly grand scale.”
“Olga’s draconic tool also reacted to it, so there should be no doubt about it. I wonder if the sky is going to always be like this if Tir Na Fal descends.” Liza looked up to the sky in annoyance
The two had spoken with each other in whispers as they couldn’t afford to let the soldiers hear what they were talking about as it’d just needlessly stir their anxiety.
“Liza, let’s choose two or three people whom we can entrust with the command of the armies.” Elen snarled with a grim look.
Her words were based on the anticipation that they might have to fight Ganelon before heading to the capital. The possibility wasn’t zero, and if it came to pass, it’d be better for them to not do so while leading their soldiers into such a battle. If fear and confusion spread within such a big group of people, even Elen and Liza would be unable to control their soldiers.
──It’d be wonderful if nothing happened to Tigre…
Elen prayed for the safety of her lover in her mind.
On the next day, close to hundred people reporting to feel sick appeared within Lebus’ army. Soldiers with knowledge about medical treatment examined all of them, but as they couldn’t identify the cause, Liza decided to delay their departure by half a day to keep an eye on their condition. However, even after half a day had passed, their health remained as bad as before. Reluctantly Liza gave up on marching that day.
The same occurred in Leitmeritz’s camp. More than hundred soldiers declared that they wouldn’t be able to move as they felt sick, but when some of the soldiers even started to vomit, Elen put them under quarantine in their tents. It took those soldiers three days to be able to walk on their own again, but none of them knew why they had broken down all of a sudden.
Translation Notes:
1. The term Rago consists of the kanji 羅轟 which translate to “lightweight fabric” and “roaring.” Of course this makes no sense since we’re talking about an ax here and not a screaming piece of cloth. The author likely used these characters as ateji, or in short, for their phonetic reading. Phonetic readings are often connected to terms that Japan imported from the continent and adopted into its own language. Shura (修羅) is a good example for it, which also uses the ra from 羅 above and originates from Asshura, a Buddhistic sanskrit term. If you’d follow that train of thought, you could probably also localize this alias as “Wild/Mad Roar.” For a full localization, I could have left this term away since it only adds another name to an already defined weapon, but oh well.
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